And the Greatest is Love
by J9
Summary: Faith, hope and love are some good things he gave us... (Sara/Nick)


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Title: And The Greatest Is Love

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Author: Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)

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Rating: PG

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Pairing: Sara/Nick

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Spoilers: Mild for _Overload_. 

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Feedback: Makes my day

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Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.

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Archive: At my site Checkmate () , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.

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Summary: Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us…

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Author's Note: Confession time - I'm not actually a Nick/Sara shipper. However, my best friend is and begged me to write a fic for her, and so this is the result! 

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She was a light sleeper when she slept at all, used to waking up at the slightest of noises, equally as used to dropping off again minutes later. Most nights when she heard the front door open, that's what she did, just rolled over and went back to sleep. Or, some nights, nights like this, she might lie there, dozing, waiting for him to come up the hall to their room, waiting for him to wake her up properly with kisses and his hands working their way slowly but surely under her pyjamas. 

Tonight, she lay waiting for him, but it seemed to take a long time for the door to open, and finally, she opened her eyes, squinting at the clock, realising with a start that it was indeed time for him to be home, past time in fact. If she had heard him come in, then why hadn't he come up? Frowning, wondering if she'd been hearing things, she rolled over and climbed out of bed, making her way out into the hallway. She intended to go straight down to the living room, but nature's call needed to be answered first, and once that was done, she took a couple of steps in that direction, calling out his name.

"It's me darlin'," came the reply, and she smiled at the endearment. Once upon a time, someone calling her that would have driven her up the wall, but that was before she'd fallen in love with him. "Go back to bed."

She paused, leaning against the wall, still just outside the entrance to the living room, a smile coming to her face. "Why don't you come with me?" she teased, enough of a lilt in her voice to let him know just what she was hinting at. 

There was a pause, then the sound of a throat being cleared. "In a minute darlin'… I'll be right there."

One "darlin'" was sweet. Two in as many sentences had her frowning, as did the voice in which they were uttered. She knew well that her husband's accent only grew that pronounced for a handful of reasons, and since she very much doubted that he'd paid a flying visit to Texas since she'd kissed him goodbye twelve hours ago, that meant that he was either very tired or very emotional. Or perhaps both. 

Treading carefully, literally and figuratively, she moved closer to the door, her stomach twisting about what she might see there. "Nick?" she called, worried now. 

Her husband was a good man, she knew that, reliable, dependable. He was not a man given to sitting and brooding when he got home from work; in nearly two years of marriage, she'd never once seen him do it, not until now. And never, in a million years, would she have expected him see him not only doing that, but doing it with a bottle of Jack Daniel's in front of him, a bottle that she knew for a fact hadn't been in the house when she'd gone to bed. 

He was sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together, his chin resting on them. The bottle of whiskey, more than a little gone from it, was in front of him, a half-empty glass beside it, and he was staring at them, though she would have laid any money that he didn't even see them. He was still wearing the same clothes he'd left the house in, though he'd removed his jacket, but it was the look in his face, even in profile, that had her heart hammering in her chest fearfully. She'd never seen him look that shattered before. 

"Nick?" she whispered. 

He turned his head slowly towards her, straightening up when he saw the look of worry on her face, giving her a hasty grin, dropping his hands and rubbing the palms on his knees. "You should go back to sleep," he told her. "It's late, and…"

She came over beside him, sat down on the couch, not right beside him, leaving a goodly amount of space between them. "What happened?" she asked, getting right to the heart of the matter. 

He didn't answer for what seemed like a long time, sucking in a ragged breath of air before he finally began to speak. "We got called to a case," he began. "A shooting. We didn't know what we were dealing with; the 911 call was kinda vague. When we got there, we found a forty-four year old male, Tony Jasper. Three shotgun wounds to the chest. Bullet casings, blood spatter, and an eyewitness. His wife."

He paused there, and she waited patiently for what would come next. 

"She was hysterical. Had seen the whole thing. Told us that it was their next door neighbour, Jack Fisher. Who, for no particular reason, just knocked on their door, and when she answered it, pushed past her, into the living room where Jasper was sitting, looking at television, and just started shooting. Then he turned around and walked out." 

This time, the pause was punctuated by refilling his drinking glass to the brim and reaching for it, downing it in a couple of gulps. 

"Brass wanted to go talk to the neighbour. We left Warrick with the scene, and Grissom and I went next door. Guy was sitting in his kitchen, calm as you like, when we got there. His wife was with him, hysterical. And sitting on her lap was their six year old daughter."

She sucked her breath in sharply, a terrible fear taking root in her heart, because she knew her husband, and she knew, she just knew, what he was going to tell her next. "Oh no," she breathed, moving closer to him on the couch. 

He continued as if she hadn't spoken, as if he wasn't even aware that she'd moved towards him. "He admitted it to us, right then and there. Told us he'd sign anything, let us test anything. Gun was right there on the table in front of him. Then he told us why he did it."

Another long pause. Another glass of whiskey downed in a few gulps. 

"Earlier today, April, that's his daughter, told him and his wife, that while she'd been next door, playing with the kids there, that Jasper had touched her…that it had happened more than once…and that it should be their secret. That she shouldn't tell anyone. Fisher told us that when he heard that, he just snapped. That's the word he used, snapped. Got the gun, went next door, and shot him. Said he wasn't sorry he'd done it, and he'd do it again." 

There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, and she moved again, closing any distance between them, sliding her arm around his shoulders. 

"And the whole time he was telling us this Sara, the whole time, I was looking at April. You should've seen her…these big blue eyes, brown curly hair…she looked like a little angel. Except for her eyes…they didn't look like they belonged to a six-year-old. More like sixty. And they were so scared Sara… she was so scared…"

His voice trailed off as with a shaking hand he reached for the bottle again, and while any other time she might have stopped him, would have stopped him long ago, tonight she couldn't make her hand move, paralysed by the picture her mind's eye was painting. Instead of a little dark haired girl sitting in a kitchen though, she was picturing a little dark haired boy, lying in his bedroom, the door opening to reveal not his mother as he first thought, but his babysitter. She could imagine the fear in his eyes, the same fear that he'd seen in little April's eyes, and her stomach rolled unpleasantly. It had taken months of them dating for him to tell her about that, and time had made it harder, not easier, for her to come to terms with. 

"She's six years old," he continued. "And all she wanted was for her daddy to make everything better. Now all she knows is that her mom's crying, and he's got blood all over him, and there are policemen in her house taking her daddy away from her." He sighed. "I'm not particularly proud of doing my job right now."

There wasn't anything that she could say to that, so she just rested her cheek against his shoulder, pressing a kiss to the material of his shirt. Her free hand reached around, covering his heart, and he turned his head towards her, brushing a kiss across her forehead, covering her hand with one of his. 

"He asked us…" His voice was so quiet that she could barely hear him. "He asked us if any of us had kids. Asked us to imagine what we'd do if we were in his shoes." She sucked in her breath sharply, knowing how that question must have affected him, and he nodded soberly, breaking her gaze, his eyes following the path his hand took, from covering her hand on his chest, down to her swollen belly. "And all I could think was, if anyone did that to her…if anyone touched her…"

She shook her head, tears choking her voice, hating the pain that she heard in his voice. Grissom was fond of saying that every day, they met people on the worst day of their lives, and every CSI had cases that hit a nerve with them, cases that affected them more than others. For him, it had always been abuse cases, but she knew that for a long time, one of his worst nightmares had been that something would happen to her in the line of duty. And for the last seven months, happy as he'd been at the news of her pregnancy -and ecstatic, she knew, was more the word - he'd been scared too, wondering what kind of father he'd be, wondering what kind of world they were bringing a child into. 

"You can't worry about that Nicky," she whispered when she found her voice again. "You know that." 

He shrugged, still not meeting her gaze. "I can't help it," he told her. "Don't you think about it?"

She'd always been honest with him, and she didn't lie now. "I try not to," she told him simply. 

Against all odds, even with the events of the night, he chuckled. "Blind faith? That's not like you."

She gave him a shrug and a gap-toothed smile, her cheeks flaming momentarily. "Don't tell Grissom," was all she said, and he chuckled again. 

"Your secret's safe with me," he promised. Mustering up a smile for him, she sighed, pulling him into her arms, holding him tightly against her. 

"It's not faith Nicky," she murmured, fingers reaching up to play with the strands of hair at the nape of his neck. "Not really. It's just…" Her voice trailed off for a moment, and she sighed in frustration, not sure of how to put into words what she felt in her heart. "This is what we do. Even with all the bad in the world, _this-_" Here she paused, looking around her, making sure that he knew she meant their life here; the home they were making, the family that they were going to raise. "This is all that matters. No matter how scared we get. Nothing can get to us here, not unless we let it." She rested her cheek against the top of his head, closing her eyes for a second, and she heard him sigh.

"I wish I could believe that," he breathed, and she opened her eyes, one hand going to his cheek, making him sit up properly, making him look at her. 

"Your mom said something to me when we told her that I was pregnant," she told him, and he interrupted her in surprise. 

"_My_ mom?" 

"Yes," she chuckled. "We do talk you know. Anyway, she told me…she said that she'd had a bad day that day. Whatever case she had, it involved kids, and you know how those ones affect her." Nick nodded, but she could tell how curious he was. "She told me that our news was just what she needed to hear…because a baby is God's way of telling us that life goes on…a sign of hope." She ducked her head, feeling a rush of heat coming to her cheeks. "I know it's sort of…you know…but she's right."

Nick didn't say anything for a long moment, and when he spoke, his voice was low and husky, the tone that she only heard him use on very rare occasions. "Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us…" he whispered, and she blinked as the reference registered with her, raising an eyebrow when it did. 

"If you're quoting George Strait at me, you must be feeling better," she pointed out, her tone several notches lighter than it had been, and he shook his head, grinning affectionately at her. 

"It's Alan Jackson," he corrected her. "And finish it." She narrowed her eyes, scanning her brain for the remaining lines, and he repeated himself to help her along. "Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us-"

In the dark recesses of her mind, she found it. "And the greatest is love," she supplied, and he nodded, cupping her face in his hands. 

"It certainly is," he murmured, as he brought his lips, curving up in a smile, to hers. "It certainly is." 


End file.
